The ZNODE 51 BBS

What is the ZNODE 51 and why BBS ?

The ZNODE 51 is
really the number 51 in a once worldwide chain of Z80 CP/M oriented
Bulletin Boards, thus BBS. Nowadays, classical BBSes have more or less
disappeared (there still is th old-fashioned way to access the ZNODE
51!) and so I decided to give the ZNODE a much more uptodate touch-up
and turned it into an Internet based information and download site with
both HTML interface and ftp download possibility.

All the
programs that I collected have been testet at least once by myself and
I hav already sorted out the rubbish. Some tools have even been souped
up or fixed due to my inputs to the programmers. It's rather difficult
to describe a collection that is the result of 10-15 years of CP/M
collectors' activities.
I have put this unique compilation of the latest CP/M programs on 85
disks of 700K capacity each and have burnt them into the pits of a
CD-ROM, the ZNODE 51 CD.
Many of those programs rely on ZCPR that had to be painfully installed in the free versions available with CBIOS adaption and CP/M 2.2 code tuning.
ZCPR is an extension of the command interpreter of CP/M-80 that
had originally been written in 8080 code, wasting lots of memory space
in the scarce 64K available. Replacing this 8080 code by elegant slim
Z80 code made room for a unified environment and remedied the worst
thing within CP/M - the need to install the terminal codes for each and
every program that made use of absolute cursor adressing. In the early
days, only programmers could adopt their systems to ZCPR.
Only with the advent of the fully automatic NZ-COM (loaded dynamically
into memory just like a utility) many people could even think about
dealing with ZCPR.
Some time went by until Bridger Mitchell wrote the CP/M Plus variant Z3PLUS
that also runs well on the CP/M Plus side of Amstrad machines. These
automated, so-called Z-Systems implement a TCAP (terminal capability
profile) like those standards in UNIX and allow programs to dynamically
adapt the screen settings (and more) without the need to install
anything. Even the use of block graphic characters made stylish menus
possible.

Other features include:

Named Directories ( instead of M15: e.g. the label TEMP: )

housekeeping of computer harddisks is made much easier

an excellent extended search path,

much improved scripting language far superior to SUBMIT

conditional command line processing as in UNIX-shells

"ALIASes" ( short names for complex command lines)

editable command line history

Beside these files I
have collected Infos on CP/M from all over the world, I have sacked the
collection of every club I contacted (the complete PCW world collection
is included), I collected files for the Amstrad series, the GDR KC
computers, and so on.

Order your ZNODE 51 CD here!.
Please keep in mind that this is free software, but International
deliveries have their prices and we must have at least the cost for
shipping. You are welcome to donate more than the mere costs to help
support Gaby's home page without that I could have never made the stuff available on the net.